Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A while back, I purchased one of Daniel Smith's Try It samplers. From my experience, Daniel Smith makes the best artist grade watercolor paints, Period. Super vibrant & highly pigmented, I've said this before. If I was going to start all over again buying watercolor paints, I would have bought all Daniel Smith products.

This is how the sheets came, and I wanted to test them in some kind of organized way so I cut them apart-

Then stapled them to small pieces of heavy weight rough handmade Indian watercolor paper. (I used rough so I could see the way the paint would lay on the surface and in the nooks and crannies.)

There wasn't really enough of the Interference samples for me to get a good idea how they would work. I have some interference acrylics from DS that i like, but have not yet tried any of the watercolors.

The Iridescent paints were okay, but I can't see an immediate use for them.

A few earthy colors that didn't do much for me. Like the purple a little.

Again, barely enough of the Duochrome & Pearlescent samples to adequately judge them. Bummer. Really wanted to check out those top two as well...

These are "Hues." A hue is a synthetic alternative to the real thing, (often due to price.) and typically do not look as good as these. I prefer to use the real thing when available.

I *LOVE* the DS Quinacridone paints. From the DS site: "Turn your palette from ordinary to extraordinary! Quinacridones combine the power of the staining pigments with the luminosity of the transparents. They flow beautifully for extremely smooth washes, have incredible depth of color and can be lifted easily while still wet. Quinacridone watercolors are exceptionally strong yet transparent. They're ideal for glazing and many artists use them as vibrant replacements for earth colors."

"No other colors have both the intensity and transparency of the quinacridone family. They are synthetic organic pigments, created in the world’s most advanced color laboratories. Minuscule pigment particles are exceptionally uniform in size and shape, which translates to unfailing behavior in the paint."

And now on to the Prima Tek samples; unique paints made with pure, authentic mineral pigments mined directly from the earth. I don't have any of these, (they can get a little pricey) so I was eager to try them. This batch was nice, but not really anything I'd use.

Nice colors, many of these tend to be on the light side.

I'll stick with SAP and Hooker's Green, thanks.

This batch offered up a fascinating combination - though I still think I'd be hard pressed to use such light colors in what I do.

Can you see the sparkles in the Sugilite?

I had fun playing with the samples, but didn't really find anything I'd want to buy outside a few of the Quinacridone colors that I don't already have.

I bought the larger sampler and it was a lot of fun! The Duochromes and Iridescents look wonderful on dark/coloured papers. I tried it on black paper and it was really neat. It really changes the way you perceive the colours. Probably not something I would use often myself but good to test out. I'll try to do a blog post on it sometime. I've been rather behind.

I like the Cadmium hues, mainly because it's an alternative to the toxic cadmium pigments.

Hi Biff:I love how you organized these samples. I have the sample sheets and have been trying to figure out a way to organize them. Hope you won't mind if I 'lift' your idea.

I too am most impressed with DS watercolors. That's primarily what I have - aside from some Holbein Irodori colors which I think are awesome. I use a few ShinHan colors that I like too - but, by far, DS are beyond any in quality - even if I have to save to be able to buy some!